I came to the fandom after the manga was already concluded, but how does it feel for people like you who have been in the fandom for a long time to finish the shipping race with your ship ending up as the most plausible one for Levi. Like you must have gone through a lot during the process lol but at the end it must have felt good.
Oh wow. Did we go through a lot? Did we ever! Following the manga realtime was a wild, wild ride, especially after Shiganshina. I’ve already written about the fandom’s reaction to the hell that was the Serum Bowl here. Things did calm down a bit after that, particularly once fans understood that Levi had chosen to save Erwin by allowing him to die, but it was still a turbulent ride.
Despite Yams hinting that Erwin might appear in flashbacks, there was a real fear that Erwin and his legacy would be completely forgotten and written out of the story. The fact that Hanji mentioned there would be a funeral for Erwin and the fallen soldiers, and then that funeral never happened and we were straight into the time skip and the Marley Arc, only heightened that fear. I’m still salty about this tbh.
One of the things to remember about the Marley Arc is that it ran for 16 chapters and 11 months passed before we saw the Paradis cast again, apart from two blurry panels of Levi in chapter 93.
There was a lot of anxiety about what was happening in the interim and how Levi would appear when he returned, particularly after the alarming subproduct of Titan science panel in 93. Personally I was holding out for Levi to return with long hair and Erwin Smith Flame of Hope Tattooed across his chest. (@seitsen-sarvi kindly obliged.) Isayama himself played on Levi’s absence by drawing pictures on his blog of Levi promoting a hot spring in his home town because he had nothing better to do.
Once the Paradis cast returned, an even bigger fear was that Levi would forget his vow to Erwin, and speculation was rife about Levi choosing a new liege. Those theories were blown out of the water in chapter 112 when Levi finally reiterated his vow to Erwin and we had the first of (several) flashbacks to the crate scene.
Once it was clear that Levi hadn’t forgotten his vow and that his prime goal was still to kill Zeke, some fans felt that his character had stagnated, that he had become petty, vindictive and driven by revenge, that he needed to “get over” his hatred for Zeke, and that he should grow up and move on. This particular argument used to drive me up the wall and I remember writing some meta pointing out that Levi wasn’t a teenage shounen protag on a voyage of discovery, he entered the manga as a fully formed character, and a grown ass man, and had remained consistent ever since.
As the denouement of the manga approached, and we had another heartbreaking crate flashback in chapter 136, there was some quite acrimonious debate about whether Levi had sworn his vow to Erwin, or to all the Survey Corps’ fallen soldiers. Most of this debate focused on points of translation that mostly went right over my head. Have a look at @tsuki-no-ura's blog where you’ll find a detailed analysis of the translations and many very patient responses to fans. My take on this particular point was that Levi swore his vow to Erwin, but he swore it on behalf of all the fallen soldiers.
Another endless point of discourse was whether Levi should live or die. Some Eruri fans desperately wanted him to die so he could be reunited with Erwin, while other fans were understandably outraged by this suggestion. Personally I was really torn on this point. Ideally I wanted Levi to survive until the very end of the manga when he would die in a blaze of glory while killing Zeke, and then be reunited with Erwin in the afterlife. I never really thought there was the slightest chance of that happening, so when Hanji got *exactly* the ending that I wished for Levi, I was astonished to say the least. But I also knew that having done it once, Isayama was unlikely to give the same ending to Levi.
Ultimately, I think most Eruri shippers were very happy with Levi’s ending; he never forgot Erwin, he remained true to his vow, he killed Zeke, helped to save Humanity (as much as it could be saved), and was rewarded with a final vision of his fallen comrades saluting his sacrifice. It was beautiful.
The fact that Levi didn’t join the diplomatic mission to Paradis to negotiate with the Yeagerists, was just the icing on the cake. I love that last image of him living his best life with Gabi, Falco, and the Onyankopon, far away from Pardis and the Yeagerists.
So yeah, that’s a very, very long winded way of saying, yes, as an Eruri shipper, Levi’s ending did feel good to me. HOWEVER, I have to add that I’ve never seen shipping as a race to be won or lost. As far as I’m concerned the whole joy of shipping is that you can make your blorbos do whatever the hell you want, regardless of canon. It really saddens me when some fans seem to spend more time shitting on ships they dislike, rather than creating content for ships that they do like. But at the same time, it also frustrates me when people try to debunk the actual canon story lines. If you don’t like canon, that’s fine, just ignore it, shipping is all about transformative works after all.
I’m going to give the last word to Isayama, who I think is a lot smarter and more knowing than we sometimes give him credit for. I know a lot of shippers of all stripes gave a wry smile when they saw this beautiful final panel of Levi with Petra, Hanji and Erwin all front and centre.
Though I couldn’t help noticing that Erwin is the only one still waiting for their partner in the after life…
